Racism

The top news story in the UK and in India is about Shilpa Shetty and how she had to suffer the racial abuse of her fellow house mates in the TV show Big Brother. In India we font get the show so I am not exactly sure what has bees said but from what I have heard, one contestant said that she makes her skin crawl, someone refereed to her as “The Indian” another one called her a dog and the list goes on. This issue has even been raised in the UK parliament and all the British Asians are up in arms. Channel 4, the channel airing the show has received lots of complaints and death threats have been send to the contestants.

Is this really racism?? Well if u look at it in a real technical way then what ever bad stuff said to Shilpa is racists comments, cause people of one race is abusing a person from another race. So technically its one form of racial discrimination. Technicalities asides lets all be honest. I would say that some 1 is being racist if they kick you out of a shop because of your skin colour or if some one gets kicked out of the 1^st class compartment in a train cause of his skin colour(the Gandhi incident). Personally I believe that the things happening in the Big Brothers house is just to increase their ratings. They have been told to fight among themselves. I bet it would be really boring if all got along perfectly. Even if its to pre rehearsed, these things cant be considered racist. Its just another way of making fun or insulting some 1. If instead of Shilpa say some US actress was there and if her accent was made fun of or if they make fun of George Bush, I don’t think such a controversy would arise. It would be considered as good television. Shilpa is not fat, nor is she ugly, she doesn’t have any physical deformities or any unusual behavior. You need something to insult a person. So the only thing which is not normal for the English people is her accent and that she is not from UK so they made fun of her that way. If people thing this is racism then making fun of some 1 cause he is fat is racism against all the fat people of the world and making fun of some 1 cause he is bald is racism against all the bald people in the world. I think the Shilpa incident is been blown out of proportion partly by the people and partly by the producers of the show, as you know that producers love controversy. A week back not many people have heard about such a show and now the whole world knows about it and if its shown in Indian television people all of India will tune in to watch it. Their ratings go up and they get more money.

Even if this is racism I don’t think we have the right to complain. We Indians are among the most racist people in the world. The way we see an American tourist and an African tourist says it all. Most of the African tourist are often harassed and are perceived as drug lords and even if a serial killers from the west comes we treat them as gods. Forget Africans there is racism even among Indians. The North Indians look down upon the dark skinned south Indians and the different look Indians from the east. There is racism even among south Indians. Some people consider dark skinned people lower to them. People make fun of their skin colour. Even when people talk they would emphasize about the skin colour of dark people. Racism is present in all forms of life. If a north Indian attacks a south Indian, the north Indian is accused of racial discrimination, if a Japanese makes fun of an Indian then the whole of Indian will be united and will accuse Japan of racial discrimination, if an Australian makes fun of an Asian then the whole of Asia will be united in bashing Australia’s racist behavior, if an Indian abuses an African the Indian is a racist. If an American abuses an African or an Asian the whole of Asia and Africa will revolt against the Americans and this can go on and on.

Racism is present in every society. It’s highlighted more when a so called upper race insults a lower race, and any kind of insult will do to make it a racist insult. Racism is a real problem in the world, but concluding that everything that the west does to Asians and Africans is rather immature and uncalled for. I think it’s high time that we stopped crying about the white people calling us names. There are 2 ways of handling this issue. The 1^st way is to ignore it completely and take the moral high ground by being the bigger person. The 2^nd is to give it right back at them. Fight fire with fire, insult them back. Compared to the west Asians are soft-spoken and mentally weak. Unless we over come that we will always be crying and complaining about the white dude abusing us. I think the racism that we saw in the past millennium is not present now. People are talking about equal opportunities for all races I think its high time that we stopped waiting for opportunity and start grabbing at all the opportunities.